St Mary’s Basilica, Sydney, Maundy Thursday, 2 April 2026
Welcome to St Mary’s for the Chrism Mass, as we begin our journey with Christ through His Sacred Triduum to Easter glory. Today, with the assistance of the deacons and faithful of Sydney, the bishops and priests will express their unity by concelebrating the Eucharist together, their vocation by renewing their priestly promises, and their service by consecrating the oils for the sacraments they bring their people.
I acknowledge Bishop Danny Meagher, now Bishop-elect of Rockhampton, and our two surviving auxiliaries, Bishops Richard Umbers and Tony Percy, with Bishop Terry Brady. As his swansong before he leaves us, Bishop Danny will be co-ordinating our archdiocesan synod, where we will explore ways to make our liturgies and lives be more prayerful, our parishes and communities more Christ-centred, and our priests and people more missionary. Together we pray today for the success of our synod.
I salute Vicar-General Sam Lynch, our episcopal vicars and deans, seminary rectors, brother priests and deacons, and fellow religious. I also greet lay faithful from our parishes.
We pray today especially for those who could not be with us today due to sickness and frailty, including Monsignor Frank Coorey who is poorly. We pray for the repose of our brother priests who have died since our last Chrism Mass: Monsignor Kerry Bayada, and Fathers Joseph Aikkaramattam, John Briffa SDB, Kevin Ehlefeldt MSC, Michael Fallon MSC, Paul Foley, Paul Glynn SM, Julian Messina OFM, Vincent Reilly, Bob Stephens, and Peter Thompson CM.
We celebrate with gratitude those priests who have achieved major milestones in their ministry: our diamond jubilarians, Timothy Williams CM, Julio Aco and Pat Hurley; our golden boys Antoni Dudek SChr, Peter Hearn MSC, John Iacono, and Paul Mahony SM; our ruby jubilarians, Jacek Cichy, John Knight and Graham McIntyre; and our silver jubilarians, Michael de Stoop and Chaminda Wanigasena.
We acknowledge with joy the six ordained to the diaconate since our last Chrism Mass: Lukas Golab, Steven Howard, Philip Pham, Robert Tonkli, Peter Tran and Lawrence Zimbe; and those ordained to the priesthood: Tai Pham, Giovanni Julio and Jorge Mairena. In welcoming our beloved seminarians from the Seminary of the Good Shepherd, the Redemptoris Mater Seminary and elsewhere, we look forward to the day when they will join us in renewing priestly vows. We give thanks to Almighty God for their growing numbers and ask that He continue to grant us many fellow-workers in His vineyard.
To everyone present, a very warm welcome to you all.
“Institution of the Priesthood”
Homily for the Chrism Mass, St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, Maundy Thursday, 2 April 2026
Twenty-one years ago today, Pope John Paul II died. Every year of his extraordinary pontificate he wrote a letter to priests for Holy Thursday—twenty-seven letters in all. His last was written from hospital as he was dying. In it he told us: “The priest is someone who, despite the passing of years, continues to radiate a youthfulness, spreading it almost contagiously among those he meets… His secret lies in his passion for Christ. For as St Paul said, ‘For me, to live is Christ.’”[1] These were the sainted pope’s dying words to his priests, and they were about what they’d always been: Christ and all that flows from Him.
In today’s Gospel Jesus reads from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.” (Lk 4:16-21) He then proclaims: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” High Priest from all eternity (Heb 4:14-5:10; 7:15-8:6), Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit at His baptism (Mt 3:16-17 et par.; Acts 10:38; Heb 9:11). He was to share that spiritual anointing with His priests, as we recall in our Rite today.
But when, precisely, did Christ institute the priesthood? When did He ‘ordain’ the apostles, ritually with prayer and laying-on-of-hands, or at least by a mandate that reset their whole being and doing? Some would dismiss it as a Western, scholastic sort of question. But it surely interests us on this day of days.
Well, the Council of Trent, following St Thomas Aquinas, taught that the priesthood was instituted on Holy Thursday.[2] Sacred iconography and hymnody likewise celebrate it tonight.[3] The liturgical calendar prefers that the Chrism Mass take place today and the Rite has me ask, immediately after the homily: “Beloved sons, on the anniversary of that day when Christ our Lord conferred his priesthood on the Apostles and on us, are you resolved to renew… the promises you once made?”
Yet it’s more complicated than that. As we heard from Isaiah today, men are called ‘Priests of the Lord’ and ‘Ministers of our God’ if they proclaim the good news, liberating and comforting news (Isa 61:1-9). After Jesus called the Twelve in Galilee, He instructed them in how to do just this, and then “He gave them authority… to proclaim the message that the kingdom of God is very near.” (Mt 10:1-8 et par.)[4] So you might say that the apostles were already engaging in this aspect of priesthood long before Holy Thursday.
On the other hand, it was only in His High Priestly Prayer at the Last Supper that Jesus formally “consecrated them in the Truth” for the ministry of the Word (Jn 17:14-19).[5] At Emmaus He joined breaking open the Scriptures to Breaking of the Bread (Lk 24:13-35), and at His ascension He renewed their commission to preach to all the world (Mt 28:16-20; Mk 16:15-19; Acts 1:8-9).
So, the ‘prophetic’ munus of priesthood was conferred by Jesus repeatedly but perhaps especially at the Last Supper. So, too, the ‘royal’ dimension. The Gospels show Him repeatedly forming and commissioning His men to exercise authority as Christian service.[6] But His most dramatic sign of this was the Washing of the Feet at the Last Supper (Jn 13:1-17), evoking the ritual washing and anointing of Aaron and his sons by Moses to serve as priests (Ex 40:12-13). Here Jesus mandated them, “I have set you an example: now do as I have done for you.”
What about the Sacrament of Reconciliation, another defining work of the Catholic priest? The tasks of forgiving each other’s faults, and binding and loosing more formally, had already been given to the Twelve before Holy Week.[7] Yet it’s only by the power of the Cross that sins can be forgiven.[8] So John tells us they were appointed as absolvers, not on Holy Thursday night but three nights later, when the Risen Lord appeared, “breathed on them, and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit: those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them.’” (Jn 20:19-23; CCC 1485)
Then there’s that other great grace of healing—Unction for the Sick and Dying. Again, back in Galilee, the apostles had already been commissioned to cast out demons, heal the sick, and anoint with oil (Mt 10:1-8; Mk 6:6-13)[9]—which suggests that the priesthood precedes Holy Week. Yet, the Second Vatican Council emphasised the connection of Penance and Anointing to Christ’s Passion: the Man of Sorrows takes upon Himself our physical, moral and spiritual woundedness and “by his wounds we are healed” (Isa 53:3-5).[10] Only by virtue of Good Friday can priests heal bodies and souls.
So preaching, governing and sanctifying were entrusted to the apostles before, after, but especially at the first Triduum. Which brings us to the Eucharist, the heart of ordained priesthood. Again, it was presaged way back in Galilee, when Christ miraculously multiplied bread and taught that He was the Bread of Life (Jn ch. 6; Mt 14:17-21 et par.). Already the Twelve participated in distributing and collecting up the elements. And already they stuck close when His teaching on the Eucharist frightened others away.
Yet it was not until today that Jesus showed them His Eucharist and instructed them to do as He did (1Cor 11:24; Lk 22:19). The moment in which He transformed the Bread and Wine was also the moment He transformed them into priests, as His words, “Do this in memory of me” re-ordered their lives. The word we translate as ‘Do this’, ποιέω (poieo), is used in the Septuagint for Moses’ ordination of Aaron and his sons to the Levitical priesthood (Ex 29:36-41). The word we translate as ‘in memory’, ἀνάμνησις (anamnesis),is the ancient language for a sacrifice that makes what is remembered present (Num 10:10; Heb 10:3). From the moment Christ said, “Do this in memory of me,” priests have been rememberers and doers of His Last Supper, celebrating His new Pasch, sanctifying as He sanctifies. And so we teach that the priesthood was instituted tonight.[11]
Priests of Jesus Christ, every time you mouth those words, “Do this in memory of me,” you recall the transformation of the elements but also of yourselves. It’s a mystery so big it could not be captured by a single minute or conferred by a single prayer. Longer even than ordinations here at St Mary’s, Christ’s men received their priesthood across the whole Triduum, when all time was suspended and reordered, and priestly time and mission ordained.
So dear brothers, as you celebrate that three-day-long liturgy, let Christ renew His grace in you—your ordering as preachers, leaders and sanctifiers. Hear Him speak to you in the mandatum, priestly prayer, and first Eucharist tonight, in His self-offering and yours on the altar of the cross tomorrow, in His commissioning of the apostles at Easter as healers and proclaimers. God bless you, ‘Priests of the Lord’ and ‘Ministers of our God’, on these your ordination days!
Announcement after Communion
My thanks to you, dear brothers, who renewed your priestly vows today and daily renew that commitment to God and His people. The oils we consecrated highlight your daily work and, on behalf of the Church of Sydney, I thank you for that service. Those oils will be available for collection after Mass at the entrance to the sacristy near the Eastern doors.
My thanks to the deacons, seminarians and choir. I am grateful also to those faithful who joined us today physically or virtually, and who join their priests in celebrating the sacraments all year round. My thanks also to the Dean and cathedral household providing hospitality to the clergy and seminarians after Mass.
May God bless you, dear fathers, and your people in the Sacred Triduum ahead, throughout Eastertide and beyond.
[1] John Paul II, Letter to Priests for Holy Thursday 2005 (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2005), citing Phil 1:21.
[2] Council of Trent, Session XXII, Doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Mass, ch. 1; “He delivered [His own Body and Blood] to be received by His apostles, whom He then constituted priests of the New Testament; and by those words, ‘Do this in memory of me,’ He commanded them and their successors in the priesthood, to offer [them], even as the Catholic Church has always understood and taught.” Canon II: “If anyone shall say that by the words ‘Do this in memory of me’ Christ did not institute the apostles priests, or did not ordain that they and other priests should offer his body and blood: let him be anathema.” Cf. canon II; St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IIIa q. 82, a.1 resp.; a.2 resp; CCC 1548.
[3] e.g. St Thomas Aquinas’ hymn Sacris Solemnis.
[4] Cf. Mt 5:14-16.
[5] Cf. Jn 14:15-17,26; 15:26-27; 16:12-15; Lk 22:29-30.
[6] e.g. Mk 9:34-35; 10:35-45; Mt 23:11-12; 25:35-40; Lk 14:7-11.
[7] Forgiving each other’s faults: Mt 6:9-15; Lk 6:37; 17:3-4. Binding and loosing: Mt 16:19; 18:15-18.
[8] Jn 1:29; Rom 5:10; 6:10; Eph 1:7; Col 1:20; Heb 9:22; 10:12; 1Jn 2:2.
[9] By the time of the Letter of James it was a well-settled part of the J.D. of presbyters: Jas 5:14-15; CCC 1511.
[10] Vatican Council II, Lumen Gentium 11.
[11] ‘When apostles become priests,’ Catholic Answers, 14 April 2022; Karlo Broussard, ‘Did Jesus make the apostles priests at the Last Supper,’ Catholic Answers 1 February 2017; Thomas Lane, The Catholic Priesthood: Biblical Foundations (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2016);Andrew Swafford, ‘How the priesthood comes from the Bible,’ Ascension Press, 23 July 2020.
